Greetings!
Recently, Eveleen Power of Dungarvan, Waterford, Eire, wrote, "I now have two art studios--one next to our home and a new one in town with nine other artists. How lucky I am. But I don't know whether to bring my really good easel into the new one or leave it in the old one. I can't decide which studio to have what medium in. My home studio has a sink so I'm thinking of just keeping that for watercolours, acrylics and water based mediums. Should the other one just be for oils? What would be some advice in this situation?"
Thanks, Eveleen. Dividing media between studios is not a bad idea. In one you might wear your watercolour hat and in the other your oily one. But it's not the "really good easel," or even the isolating of media from one space to the other that will make your work greater. It's what you bring on the commute.
State of mind is all-important. The British painter David Hockney said, "People have asked me, 'Isn't it boring in Bridlington, a little isolated seaside town?' And I say, 'Not for us. We think it's very exciting, because it is in my studio and it is in my house.'" The home studio need not be either big or fancy. "Small rooms," said Leonardo da Vinci, "set the mind in the right path; large ones cause it to go astray." Many significant artists treat the home studio as a secondary venue. "A studio," said Joaquin Sorolla, "is a good place to smoke your pipe." That said, the studio need only be a sacred place where work and imagination gently collude. "A space," said Rainer Maria Rilke, "for the spirit to breathe."
My observation of folks who decide to hang out with others (I've never tried it) is that they end up with social venues where interpersonal aggravation sets in, interest flags and quality becomes intermittent. There may be exceptions, of course, and it's certainly something that might be tolerated once a year or so. But it's a great loss not to work down at the bottom of the garden with the fairies.
Best regards,
Robert
PS: "The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out." (David Rakoff)
Esoterica: My best advice is to teach yourself to work pretty well anywhere. The mere act of making this decision builds your capacity for growth. In the heady days of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, sweet-spots appear like volunteers in a rambling garden. You can do it on a beach, on a heath, in a park, in a car or boat or on a friend's patio while he's trying to be a banker. Your home studio may be a pretty important place--the center of your universe--but the world is loaded up with other sacred spots. "Capto omnes" (Gennius - 36BC) "Grab them all."
davidtomlinartistblog - "Thy Hand is in this design..."- artistic musings, original oil & acrylic paintings, art cards, fine art canvas reproductions and art supplies.
Friday, 17 August 2012
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Leandro Erlich - Swimming Pool (2008)
“An extraordinary and visually confounding installation…Erlich constructed a full-size pool, complete with all its trappings, including a deck and a ladder. When approached from the first floor, visitors were confronted with a surreal scene: people, fully clothed, can be seen standing, walking, and breathing beneath the surface of the water.
It was only when visitors entered the Duplex gallery from the basement that they recognized that the pool is empty, its construction a visual trick fashioned by the artist.
A large, continuous piece of acrylic spanned the pool and suspended water above it, creating the illusion of a standard swimming pool that was both disorienting and humorous.”
Bon Appétit, Bernstein!
On today, Julia Child’s 100th birthday, we celebrate the perfect pairing of food and music. What do Julia Child and Leonard Bernstein have in common? Lee Hoiby’s 1989 opera, Bon Appétit, was not only based on Julia Child’s own words and recipes from her television show, but it also, at one point, included Lenny’s early song cycle La Bonne Cuisine, set to excerpts from Julia’s autobiography. Celebrate Julia today with this clip from the opera, as performed by Debra McVicker.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
The joyous mind
Greetings!
Michelle Renaud is a young painter living in Calgary, Alberta. With a loving and expressive personality, she paints semi-abstract acrylics which she describes as reflecting her feelings. From a very young age, Michelle drew circles--she describes them as "doors." She likes to layer her work, emphasizing and reemphasizing her favorite shapes. Alternately, she uses petal-like forms and stripes to indicate landscapes and spectrums of colour. Her favourite colour is red, which she says describes fire, the sun, and happiness. According to her friends and family, Michelle is a happy, bright and beautiful person. Michelle has Down syndrome. Another young woman, Liz Etmanski, was the first I know of to graduate from a top art school--The Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. Liz has gone on to teach art to disabled folks and has pioneered the use of the iPad as an art medium. All this is of interest to me because our grandson, Beckett Genn, who has just turned five, also has Down syndrome. Beckett gets excited when we bring out his art materials and his outdoor easel. He takes joy in the sensuousness of paint, re-emphasizes shapes and motifs he has already established and seems to favour the warm side of the palette. Beckett is becoming fastidious about removing errant paint from his hands and fingers--a virtue his grandfather lacks. He works expressively and confidently from the center out. These days he takes his time choosing from a variety of his brushes and paints energetically using the full handle. Several of his works have been used as fundraisers. We've put the work of all three painters at the top of the current clickback. Observing a trance-like state and the machinations of my own mind as I paint, I've been curious as to what might be going on in the minds of others. It seems the act of applying colours is deep-seated, perhaps atavistic, as if some humans are programmed to move pigment from one place to another. Do we, I wonder, have an innate need to plop and smear and modify? When I watch an artist's tongue, flashing eyes and contortions of the mouth, I know that something is happening in the land of joy. Best regards, Robert PS: "I like to paint and I like to draw because it takes me out of the crazy world. It makes me happy and it makes me laugh." (Liz Etmanski--from her artist's statement upon graduating) Esoterica: Down syndrome is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. John Langdon Down, a British physician, first described the syndrome in 1866. The chromosomal nature of the condition was not fully understood until 1959. In the USA, one in every 691 babies is born with Down syndrome and its consequential delay in cognitive ability. In loving and respectful environments, many people with Down syndrome can achieve self-sufficiency and joyful, productive lives.
Michelle Renaud is a young painter living in Calgary, Alberta. With a loving and expressive personality, she paints semi-abstract acrylics which she describes as reflecting her feelings. From a very young age, Michelle drew circles--she describes them as "doors." She likes to layer her work, emphasizing and reemphasizing her favorite shapes. Alternately, she uses petal-like forms and stripes to indicate landscapes and spectrums of colour. Her favourite colour is red, which she says describes fire, the sun, and happiness. According to her friends and family, Michelle is a happy, bright and beautiful person. Michelle has Down syndrome. Another young woman, Liz Etmanski, was the first I know of to graduate from a top art school--The Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. Liz has gone on to teach art to disabled folks and has pioneered the use of the iPad as an art medium. All this is of interest to me because our grandson, Beckett Genn, who has just turned five, also has Down syndrome. Beckett gets excited when we bring out his art materials and his outdoor easel. He takes joy in the sensuousness of paint, re-emphasizes shapes and motifs he has already established and seems to favour the warm side of the palette. Beckett is becoming fastidious about removing errant paint from his hands and fingers--a virtue his grandfather lacks. He works expressively and confidently from the center out. These days he takes his time choosing from a variety of his brushes and paints energetically using the full handle. Several of his works have been used as fundraisers. We've put the work of all three painters at the top of the current clickback. Observing a trance-like state and the machinations of my own mind as I paint, I've been curious as to what might be going on in the minds of others. It seems the act of applying colours is deep-seated, perhaps atavistic, as if some humans are programmed to move pigment from one place to another. Do we, I wonder, have an innate need to plop and smear and modify? When I watch an artist's tongue, flashing eyes and contortions of the mouth, I know that something is happening in the land of joy. Best regards, Robert PS: "I like to paint and I like to draw because it takes me out of the crazy world. It makes me happy and it makes me laugh." (Liz Etmanski--from her artist's statement upon graduating) Esoterica: Down syndrome is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. John Langdon Down, a British physician, first described the syndrome in 1866. The chromosomal nature of the condition was not fully understood until 1959. In the USA, one in every 691 babies is born with Down syndrome and its consequential delay in cognitive ability. In loving and respectful environments, many people with Down syndrome can achieve self-sufficiency and joyful, productive lives.
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Monday, 13 August 2012
3D Balls: Depth Test 18, 2012
Been working on a collection of anaglyphs.
You need the glasses for this. Everyone should own a pair!!
The Easel: International Left-Handers Day
TITLE: “Left Hand of an Apostle (Linke Hand eines Apostels)”
ARTIST: Albrecht Dürer
DATE: 1508
WHY WE CHOSE IT: Southpaws, raise your hand — August 13 is International Left-Handers Day! The annual holiday is an effort to promote awareness of the inconveniences facing…
Friday, 10 August 2012
Monument
Greetings!
Nearby where I live is Redwood Park. Above the Hazelmere Valley, these originally clear-cut 80 acres were owned by deaf twins, David and Peter Brown. Around 1893, when they were in their early 20s, the brothers started planting and caring for small trees collected as seeds and seedlings by mail from places like Russia, Austria, Japan, France, Italy and California. As the trees grew, the reclusive and eccentric brothers built and lived in a two-story treehouse. Here, in 1958, they died, leaving this property to the municipality.
Today the park is a mature forest--a stately cathedral with winding pathways, occasional sunny meadows and secret painterly hideaways. To set up here is to feel the brothers' dedication to peaceful isolation and the miracle of growth.
All of us have the opportunity to leave our world with some sort of monument. Some among us have the compulsion more than others. Down deep, many artists have the idea that the objects we produce will be our legacy. Our life in art is like the growth of a forest--small seeds nurtured until their presence is inescapable. We, too, use the power of nature to build our unique monuments.
With dissemination and distribution our life-work in art is divided and travels to many lands. Unlike a forest that can be taken down with a single careless match, ours is of many parts--some, at least, which may stay out of harm's way.
We owe it to ourselves to manage the quality of our craft. We need to take care of permanence and give heed to the integrity of our designs and the lasting freshness of our colours. "Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat," says Plotinus in The Enneads. It's a given that our art might just be around for a long time. "Ars longa, vita brevis est." (Hippocrates) "Art is long, life is short."
The brothers, great readers that they were in their silent worlds, knew the value of ancient things. "The emanation from old trees changes and renews the spirit." (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Best regards,
Robert
PS: "Along the way trees are planted which are not expected to bear fruit in one's lifetime." (The Dreamway, 231)
Esoterica: Incense, Lebanon, and Blue Atlas Cedars and many other evergreens have done well here. Elms, chestnuts and maples are doing okay. Of the 32 species the brothers planted, the California redwoods, Sequoia gigantea, have truly thrived. Is this the world's longest living thing? Is this one of our largest? These sequoias I now sit under are truly large, but they are perhaps not as large as they are going to be.
Current Clickback: "Colour choice and adjustment" looks at putting down the right colour. Your comments will be appreciated.
Read this letter online and share your thoughts about leaving behind a monument. Live comments are welcome. Direct, illustratable comments can be made at rgenn@saraphina.com
The Art Show Calendar: If you or your group has a show coming up, put an illustrated announcement on The Painter's Keys site. The longer it's up, the more people will see it. Your announcement will be shown until the last day of your show.
The Workshop Calendar: Here is a selection of workshops and seminars laid out in chronological order that will stimulate, teach, mentor, take you to foreign lands or just down the street. Many of these workshops are recommended by Robert and friends. Incidentally, if you are planning a workshop and have photos of happy people working, feel free to send them to us and we'll include a selection in the workshops feature at no extra charge.
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Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
The Xiying Rainbow Bridge
The Xiying Rainbow Bridge is an elevated pedestrian walkway located in Magong, Penghu County in Taiwan. The bridge is lined with a thin neon band that reflects a rainbow onto the water’s surface below at night. (via gaks)
Colour choice and adjustment
Greetings!
Some painters nail the exact colour they need on the first go. I'm not one of them. In my experience, 90% share my problem. Colours change as the colours change around them--and you can't know the colour of a passage until you're picking up what you're putting down. The situation is compounded by the presence of (or desirability for) reflected lights, silhouettes, local colours, broken colours, cast shadows, equal intensity lay-bys, etc. Finding the right colour can be like looking for the Higgs boson.
Understanding how colour works is largely a self-taught skill. Two years ago a young New Zealand painter, Richard Robinson, produced a remarkable video on the subject. There's a twice-weekly letter about it here.
Further, every serious painter should study the research of Josef Albers, Albert Munsell, and other colour wizards. Here are a few practical ploys to consider:
* Consider limiting your palette. One of my all-time best tips is to start out with large dollops of six or seven pigments only. How's about black, white, cad red, crimson, yellow and blue. By forcing the mixing of opposites on the colour wheel, limited palettes facilitate delicious, sophisticated colours.
* Consider "pushing colour." This is where you overstate early on with brighter or "any old" colour in the full knowledge that you can adjust later. Curiously, a gut decision in overstating often gives a delightful energy that doesn't need later modification.
* Consider grisaille. This is where black, white and gray-scale become a chassis for colour to be localized later. Apart from achieving a certain kind of style, grisaille proves once again that relative tone values are more important than local colour.
* Consider "infinite play." Taking care not to overwork, keep adjusting colour hue, intensity and tone value. The hues within sunlight and shadow, for example, are not always obvious at first. Keep playing until you begin to see visual truth.
* Consider glazing. Tone down or re-tone passages with a transparent, generally darker tone spread over a dry under-painting. Warm can be made cool and cool can be made warm, either overall or in selected passages. One of the most underrated and underused ploys, glazing fixes and pulls together lame colour compositions for fun and profit.
Best regards,
Robert
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